Monday, September 22, 2008

The Anchoress has a good post on the left's creation of the subprime nightmare that we are in today. She links to Mark Levin's broadcast, provides additional details and links.

This from the Anchoress:

Yes, I know his voice is grating, yes I know he can be too rude by half on his program, but take the time to listen to this audio of last Friday’s Mark Levin show. (H/T Ace) You want the breakdown of what happened and why it happened? Levin gives it to you in plain language. Listen to it, even if you really don’t want to. I didn’t want to, but it’s important that we understand what happened, here, historically, that we don’t simply succumb to spin. Look past Levin’s politics and his cranky yelling, and just get the history.

. . . Levin quotes the GOP senate in 2003 on their worries and their desire to address the coming problem. He also quotes the Democrats who blocked it. He has a lot of citations, here are a few:

In August of 2007, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), heading the Senate Banking Committee argued to life the portfolio cap from Freddy & Fannie to create more loans and allow F&F to buy more sub-prime mortgages “to calm the market.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, (D-NV) in 2005, in response to an effort by the GOP to trim Fanny & Freddy’s portfolios: “The legislation from the Senate banking committee, passed today on a party line vote by the Republican majority, includes measures that could cripple the ability of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to carry out their mission of expanding homeownership,” said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the Senate Minority Leader Thursday…”While I favor improving oversight by our federal housing regulators to ensure safety and soundness, we cannot pass legislation that could limit Americans from owning homes and potentially harm our economy in the process,” Reid said.

Writing in the Wall St. Journal with Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) argued to reduce the regulations passed after Enron. He plays an audio clip of Schumer trashing Bush and trying to get what he wants.

Do listen to Levin. He gets loud and shrill sometimes; he is certainly passionate. But he is also very, very informative, especially about the “corrosive cronyism,” as Levin describes it. I had not realized that so many of Barack Obama’s top financial advisors are people who made millions running Fan & Fred. And yes, that’s troubling. It would be troubling if it was true of McCain’s campaign, too. But it’s more troubling about Obama, because Obama has not done anything. He’s running for president on 140 days of experience in the Senate. It feels, increasingly, like he’s simply being put into place to maintain the status quo.

They wouldn’t work together in 2003 or 2005, but Schumer is making bi-partisan noises. One hopes he means it. Really. But one also cannot but remember how the Democrats in the Senate - led by Schumer - filibustered just about everything that Bush tried to do, whether it was address this problem, address Social Security, address the energy situation (we still don’t have the upgraded power grids we needed in 2003) they filibustered like mad on EVERYTHING until they got into power in 2007, at which time they stopped legislating at all, which may in the end be to our benefit. Remember those words: DEMOCRAT FILIBUSTERS. They used the filibuster constantly to prevent Bush from doing anything.